CARLYLE - The Pig Improvement Company (PIC) invited various community members last week to their newly constructed hog barn facilities, located southeast of Carlyle.
Invitees included staff and elected officials from the local municipalities, the Town of Carlyle, other local dignitaries, local farmers and the Observer.
Tour guides for that day were Marney and Joe Jobin from Mound City, S.D. The Jobins were transferred to that PIC facility in the United States 10 years ago but were both born and raised in Saskatchewan.
The tour began by entering the main premises. Based on sound biosecurity principals, upon arrival, employees must undress, shower and redress into full work gear. They enter a kitchen area where cell phones are not permitted. Lunches brought in are exposed to an ultraviolet machine for contamination. Interestingly, no pork or pork products are allowed on the premises.
The first room viewed was the farrowing barn. This barn houses pregnant sows and when the piglets are born, they reside there for three weeks. Each room houses 48 sows and there are nine of them. Incidentally, the entire farm will be heated during the cold months and cooled through evaporative cooling systems that are installed at the ends of each barn.
The youngsters are then moved to the nursery where they consume substantial feed and gain weight for another 40-42 days. They are then transferred to the finishing barn for up to 12 weeks. After the full 150-day cycle, they are retained for future generations, shipped out as either high quality breeding stock or sent to market. That ratio is about half and half.
Those on the tour were also privileged to view the gestation barn. Sows are placed in individual stalls and artificially inseminated with fresh semen drawn from high-quality bred boars from their PIC Whitewood location.
PIC’s Atlas is a genetic nucleus station and five different lines of pigs will be raised at the Carlyle facility, some for their breeding, and some for their meat. Offspring will be marketed to all parts of the world including China, Russia, the U.S. and Europe, usually by air. Prior to being relocated, they will be housed for 28 days in a quarantine barn located just five kilometers northwest of Carlyle.
Pigs that are to be slaughtered are trucked to meat packing facilities in Manitoba. The semi-trailers used are “primary” washed at those facilities. The vehicles then return to Carlyle where they receive their “secondary” wash at the Eight Street West building being constructed.
The 50 or so invitees on this day were honoured as once stock is onsite, there will be no visitors permitted. The first shipment of bred sows is expected to arrive the second week of February and are presently being housed at their PIC Kipling location. The estimated time to reach this 2,000-head capacity to full production is the spring of 2023.
All feed is processed and purchased locally. When peak production is achieved, there will be a minimum of 12 loads on triaxle tandems carrying 27 tonnes of feed every week. Stoughton Feed Processors is their supplier.
This is an innovative hog producing facility. The animals are moved from barn to barn without leaving the premises as all are interconnected. All manure is stored entirely inside those facilities and will be spread as fertilizer on adjacent farmer fields in both the spring and fall. All federal and provincial regulations will be strictly adhered to.
Peak production will require 30 full-time employees and some part-time workers. Hiring is already taking place with training being conducted at their PIC facilities in Kipling and Whitewood.
For more agriculture stories from southeast Saskatchewan, check out the On The Farm special publication.
